It's tempting to see Trump as a malevolent force corrupting us, rather than as one of us. This is a useful conceit for the fiction writer, because people love absolute villains like Voldemort, or Professor Moriarty. Unfortunately, when this Manichaean notion is applied to three-dimensional humans (even awful ones like Hitler or Dylan Rooff), the result can be dangerous. It comforts most people to believe that some people are "evil," because this characterization flatters the rest of us. Whatever mundane flaws we may have, at least we're not evil.
This self-congratulatory approach to morality is bad, but it's not the worst thing about the reflexive labeling of people as evil.
When we see people this way, it makes it harder to identify and fight the humans who invite the characterization. In the political arena, demonizing your opponent is more effective as a way of rallying your base than as a way of winning the hearts and minds of the enemy. There's no consensus as to why Clinton lost, and I suspect it's a crazy quilt of different reasons, but it does seem in retrospect that making the case for Trump being simply too awful a human being to run the country was the wrong strategy. (In general, appealing to the morality or conscience of the other party is a huge mistake, since both sides have vastly different ideas of what's morally right or wrong.
Another example of poor liberal strategies is the fight to get Obamacare passed. It seemed to me that liberals told conservatives we needed Obamacare because of all the Americans who were suffering without it. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, but a better approach might have been to argue how the then-current situation was fucking up our economy, affecting even Americans for whom health insurance wasn't an issue. Instead, liberals told conservatives they should feel bad for the other people who didn't have health insurance. This was similar to the phenomenon of buying someone a Christmas gift that YOU would want, rather than the one they would want.
There's an interesting rhetorical and philosophical approach to the idea of suffering in this country. If businesses are suffering, that's cause for great indignation because it's surely the fault of liberal policies. If people are suffering, and we have a Democratic president, this suffering is cause for chestbeating about the failed liberal policies. Incidentally, I don't argue conservatives are wrong about this; I'm not qualified to make that point. But this is the narrative we hear all the time. Business gets the benefit of the doubt while people and liberals do not. Presumably, with a one party state, one of two things will happen-- the suffering will end, or the blame will be shifted from liberals to the sufferers themselves. The GOP will not blame itself.)
Seeing Trump as a monstrous Goliath figure makes it harder to oppose him effectively, for various reasons. Here are two of them.
1. It blinds you to the many villains who actually pull the strings in the world.
While Trump is certainly filthy rich, he doesn't really have the wealth to make him as powerful as many other people you and I haven't even heard of. I believe many powerful people see Trump as a leader to be manipulated in order to get their longtime agendas through, as they see all presidents. Trump doesn't really have any comparable longtime agenda himself; obviously, he has goals related to his own business, but his bizarre public persona and head-scratching neurotic compulsions separate him from the real elites. Building garish eyesores, stiffing contractors, and hosting bottom-feeder television shows put you on the radar. Most people that have an outsized influence on public policy fly under the radar, and they don't feel the need to impress rubes by covering everything with gold leaf. That's an Elvis move, and if you think Elvis was the kind of guy who ran things, you have misunderstood the King.
2. It blinds you to Trump's real character, and thus to his weaknesses.
Barack Obama took one for the team when he swallowed his pride in the White House meeting with Trump. I don't know whether our waning president's chat with Trump was brilliantly Machiavellian or just intuitively diplomatic, but I'd argue he did more to hobble Trump in sixty minutes of tea and sympathy than all the protestors and public chest beaters have accomplished collectively with their metaphorical cannonball into the pool of public discourse. Donald Trump has all the money he could ever need. He loves getting more, of course, but if you've been watching him closely you should know by now that he cares much more about his ego than his wallet. Treating him with respect is like steering into a skid, or belly rubbing an alligator. It's counterintuitive, to say the least, but surprisingly effective where other approaches are mostly symbolic.
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